


Young Derek Old Derek Sexuality Crisis

by thegirlnamedcove



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cheaper than Therapy, Existential Crisis, Future Fic, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Magic, Nemeton, Realization, Time Travel, Young Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 14:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlnamedcove/pseuds/thegirlnamedcove
Summary: “It’s okay to talk here. Say whatever you want. This is a safe space.”The younger version of Derek sneered, his arms tightly crossed over his chest. Derek resisted the urge to roll his eyes.“Really?” He said the word with all the disdain a sixteen year old idiot could muster.“I don’t know, Stiles told me to say it."





	Young Derek Old Derek Sexuality Crisis

“It’s okay to talk here. Say whatever you want. This is a safe space.”

The younger version of Derek sneered, his arms tightly crossed over his chest. Derek resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Really?” He said the word with all the disdain a sixteen year old idiot could muster.

“I don’t know, Stiles told me to say it. Just...it’s fine. I’m you, I remember being how you are. You don’t have to keep up the cocky bullshit.”

And he didn’t, not really. Derek remembered the way he used to move through the world, unearned confidence mixed in with equal amounts of insecurity, shoulders thrown back like he couldn’t imagine anyone not liking him. Right now he was scared--cosmic time travel did that to a person--but it was still the same person. Derek Hale, circa junior year of high school, point guard for the basketball team, werewolf.

As the Nemeton woke up more and more, the magic that tied it to the Hale family grew stronger. And ever since Peter married the Alpha of the Gracia pack down south--took his name and gave him his loyalty--Derek was the last remaining Hale for the tree to latch onto. It needed him and his pack in the same way they fed off of its magic, and it didn’t feel he was strong enough apparently.

No, that’s not exactly right. It didn’t seem to care about his strength. It didn’t think he was _stable_ enough.

So here he was talking to his younger self, who the Nemeton had scooped out of the past in order for him to reconcile his self identity. According to Stiles, and his wealth of occult books, his past self wouldn’t retain any memory of this meeting when he was sent back, but there would be a healing of the soul that transcended time. Or some garbage like that.

“Look, just...tell me what you need to tell me. Warn me about future hurricanes, throw me some lottery numbers, and send me back home. I’ve got stuff to do that isn’t _this_.”

Derek snorted, “Oh, yeah. Like what?”

“Homecoming, for starters. What, you forget everything in your old age?”

He hummed. Cracked his neck while he thought. Finally, Derek asked in a light voice: “You gonna go with Leo Valdez?”

The blush that overtook the younger Derek’s face was fierce and immediate, and he averted his eyes to the floor and scoffed.

“No. Why would I?”

Derek--the older Derek--shrugged. “I remember liking him a lot. He had that curly dark hair, and gold eyes. After Paige he was...different. Good different.”

The teenager in the room winced at Paige’s name, and the adult sympathized.

“Yeah, but he’s a guy, so…”

“I’m you, Derek. I remember being you, the way that you are. I know you think you’ll grow out of it. In about a year, you’ll meet an older woman and she’ll make you feel like everything’s fine and you’re normal and you don’t have to worry about Leo Valdez ever again. And then she’ll hurt you, and a lot of other people.”

“I don’t…” Derek coughed, “I’m _fine_. I am fine.”

Older Derek pushed forward, laid a hand on the younger’s knee. He squirmed back, trying to avoid the touch but finally lifted his eyes from the floor and Derek met them.

“You are fine. You’re fine with Paige, or with Leo, or with anyone. It’s fine to feel the way you do. What’s not fine is doing anything and everything to try and change.”

“What, like you're so much better?” he shot back, and it was pure defensiveness, but the thing was...the thing was that in some ways he wasn’t. And he knew it. So he switched topics, onto something more pressing when it came to completing what the tree wanted.

“Stiles also says I should talk to you about our family. How you interact with them, what I wish I could tell them.”

The younger Derek laughed, “And who the fuck is Stiles? _What_ the fuck is Stiles? Why do they tell you what to do?”

Derek scowled. “He's smarter than both of us combined.” He steadfastly ignored the muted laughter that his doppelganger was trying to hide. “And he's our emissary, here in the future, so you need to show the position some respect.”

Derek the teenager wrinkled his nose. “Emissary?” he asked, “What's that?”

That's right. Derek's mother kept it a secret. According to Deaton most alphas did, in order to preserve some sense of sacred duty mumble mumble mumble...then Deaton would cough and change the subject.

But, then, there was a reason he'd been fired and Stiles put in place instead, and it wasn't just nepotism now that Scott was in charge.

“It means he knows how to turn your ass into a toad, lobito.”

Another secret his mom kept, or at least a reason for the younger one to confirm once again the identity if the older one. He'd learned spanish from his father, but all the nicknames and curse words came from his mother, and that one always felt particularly embarassing. It could mean little wolf, or it could mean little smartass, most of the difference was in the in the inflection. Derek had made sure that particular nickname was never spoken outside the confines of their family home.

The younger Derek huffed, but conceded the point.

“He sounds like a real dick.”

“Well,” the older Derek smiled, “He’s no Leo Valdez, but…”

He froze in his seat, ankles splayed out in front of him and and arms held tight to his chest, and snapped his gaze forward.

“What? You fucking him?”

Before the adult Derek could answer, the teenaged one squirmed in his seat and glanced toward the door, as if doubting its soundproofing.

“Does anyone know you’re fucking him?”

Derek sighed, and hunched forward a little. He knew what he’d been like, remembered how vulnerable he’d felt after Paige, how desperately he’d wanted to blend into the background. Self examination and the great unknown of coming out had felt like an insurmountable task when he was already struggling so much, and a neon sign besides, something that would draw attention to him. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with, though, and he wasn’t nearly as good at deflecting as he’d thought he was.

“Well, most of the pack attended the wedding, so…”

He lifted his left hand to show off the ring sitting there, platinum with a white sapphire. (Stiles had insisted, because “Diamonds nowadays are made of blood, Derek! Blood diamonds!”) The younger Derek’s eyes almost burst out of his head, and he fumbled for a second, hiking up higher on his chair and then forward, no real aim to his movements. He stared at the ring like he thought it would bite him if he took his eyes off of it.

“You can’t...that’s not legal,” he spat, finally.

“That’ll change in...2015? California kept changing it’s mind, but then the Supreme Court ended the arguing. We got married in 2016.”

“You don’t...what does mom think?”

Derek, the older Derek, felt like there was ice water in his chest, filling him up and drawing out all the warmth he’d fought for over the years. Now it was his turn to drop his gaze into his lap, and he studied the ring there, twisting it back and forth with the opposite hand.

“I don’t know. She’s not around anymore. I like to think she’d approve, she was always...she always seemed positive about same sex couples on tv and she had that cousin out in Texas who was a lesbian, but...I just don’t know. I’m not ever going to know how she feels about anything again.”

He glanced up, for a second, and almost laughed at the constipated look on his younger self’s face. If he had to guess, he was probably trying to look sympathetic and wishing the floor would open up and spirit him away.

“I wasted a lot of time as a teenager hiding things from her. I probably could have asked her then.”

They sat for a long moment, in the mostly empty room. They mostly used it for storage, extra dining chairs and cupboards filled with Christmas decorations, and the only real sound was the ticking of the ugly trout themed wall clock buried somewhere in all the boxes.

“I don’t see why you’re telling me this,” the younger Derek said finally, “So you yell at me, tell me what to change and what you want me to do different. Then I go back and forget everything, you said I wouldn’t remember this, so what are you trying to accomplish here?”

Derek huffed a laugh, “Yelling at my younger self is most of what I do every day.”

The teenager’s eyebrows drew down in confusion.

“Nothing, it’s...something Stiles would poke fun at me over. Does poke fun at me over. It’s just...I’ve had this sort of conversation in my head before, so many times. ‘Derek, you’re such an idiot, why did you let Laura go alone. Derek, you’re such an idiot, why didn’t you give Scott more information from the start. Derek, you’re such an idiot, why did you let Boyd and Erica go when all she wanted was her license. I…” he let out a breath, shaky and shallow, and laughed again, “None of it changes anything. I’ve got you here, in front of me, and it still won’t change anything. I just...I have to live with those choices and what they caused, and I have to find a way to stop doing this. To stop...hoping that somehow I can figure out a way to fix the past. It just keeps me stuck there.”

Across from him, there was a fluttering sound, almost like wings, and a rush of air across his skin, and then it was dead silent again, except for the ticking clock. He looked up, at the now empty chair, and breathed a sigh of relief. The Nemeton wanted him to let go? That was...he could do that.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't for the life of me think of a good title, so instead you get my working title. Also, you should know that every time I see it I sing the words to the tune of "soft kitty warm kitty" from that hellshow Big Bang Theory.


End file.
